McLean County Times

Carlock Public Library District Board met Oct. 15.

Here are the minutes provided by the board:

President, Beth Wagner, called the meeting to order at 6:34pm. Board members present were David Garrison, Dawn Neblock, Kevin Moore,and Laura Stephenson. Nick Birky and Mike Miller were absent. Library Director Christie Lau was in attendance. There were no visitors. The meeting was recorded. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.

Public Comment:

● No members of the public were present, so there was no public comment

Correspondence:

● There were 3 pieces of correspondence. One is a water survey for the village. The second is the 2024 EAV from the Woodford County Supervisor’s Office The third is from the accounting firm for the library. It is a new client agreement that is based on some new policies that they have.

Approval of Minutes

● Regular Board Meeting from September 2024 - approved as corrected.

Reports

● Library Director: This month picked up at the library again compared to September. Circulation is up for the quarter compared to last year as well. There were 43 new cards this month. Social media followers are up from a year ago as well. For this quarter, July was heavy for programs because of the summer reading program. Elementary school visits have started up again and all 5 grades are participating this year. A number of groups are also using the library meeting room. Within this past quarter, 5 reports and ordinances were completed. Two major projects were completed in this quarter - weeding some of the collections and also creating “grab & go” selections for beginning and elementary readers. Traci Givens resigned in August to accept a full time position elsewhere. Rachel Shore has been promoted to Assistant Director. Christie attended 5 directors’ meetings as well as a RAILS meeting. There are 3 new features of the library as well - specialty cake pans for circulation, a magazine exchange area, and EBSCO databases. The databases can be accessed on the website under the resources tab. Christie attended the Illinois Library Association Annual Conference from October 8-10. She provided a written summary of the sessions that she attended. It would be worth looking into Libraries of Illinois Risk Agency when we need to update insurance. The HR Source is also something the library might look into. It would be around $300 for the year and they provide HR advice, policy review, employment law consultation, recruitment/retainment advice, and employee relations consultation as well as other services.

● President: No report

● Secretary: No report

● Finance Committee: No report

● Policy Committee: No report

Financial Reports:

● Financial Statements August 2024: This report was received late from the accountant because the paperwork was not accurate on time for the September meeting. The board looked over the August statements, but focused on the September financial statements since those are more recent.

● Financial Statements September 2024: We picked up an additional $31,000 this month. We have almost all of the tax money from Woodford and McLean counties at this point. The working cash fund is fully funded at this point. We use this fund to pay bills in April and May when there is a dry period. The special reserve fund is down to $26,000 after paying the loan for this year.

Old Business:

● FY24 Illinois Comptroller’s Report: This report is a required report that must be submitted to the state. Dave made a motion to accept the report. Beth seconded the motion. Motion passed unanimously. There is a ⅗ majority in attendance tonight and all 5 voted to accept the report.

● History Room Proposal: This proposal was submitted by Mike Miller. As he is not here, Beth made a motion to table this proposal. Dave seconded the motion. Four voted to table the motion with 1 opposing the motion. Dawn has some concerns about the history room proposal, including the cost to create and maintain a history room. Beth indicated that starting with a presentation to the local community would enable the stakeholders to let us know how they see the room being utilized. The board will come back to this topic at a later date after gathering more information from the local community.

New Business:

● Patron appreciation/feedback: Christie is suggesting that we have an open house type of event that includes patron appreciation, potentially tours of the building spaces, and also requesting feedback about the set-up of the library. The feedback could be about the current history room, the types of materials that we currently have, and things that the public would like to see within the library. In order to make an event like this successful, the board members should personally invite stakeholders to attend and should also be on hand to talk with patrons, listen to their ideas, and answer questions about the library. There would need to be very intentional communication about this event. Getting some large post-it papers and having people write their ideas as well as read other people’s ideas could help with getting buy-in as well as knowing where we should go from here.

● Library staff holiday celebration: Traditionally we have had a small gathering including the board and the staff. With a larger staff, it could be difficult to get everyone together on a single night. Christie will talk to the staff to see if they would like a party or not.

Upcoming meetings:

● Next financial committee meeting: November 7, 2024 at 6:30pm

● Next regular meeting: November 19, 2024 at 6:30pm.

Laura made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Dawn seconded the motion. Motion carried unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 8:26pm.

https://www.carlocklibrary.com/files/6fa0795af/10_15_2024+amended.pdf